ProjectWorld and World Congress for Business Analysts blog seeks to bring together all levels of project management and business analysis expertise, from diverse industries and perspectives, across business groups and information technology. Our goal is build successful collaboration and share content, best practices, techniques, and networking.

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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Earn a complimentary all-access pass to ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts 2014 by serving as a Guest Blogger at the event. As a Guest Blogger, you’ll have access to PW&WCBA's comprehensive agenda attracting the best in insights from around the world, right in Seattle, Washington this fall.

You'll get a free pass to the annual PW&WCBA event plus exclusive access to a networking community and on-demand webinars, to help you grow and learn throughout the year.

Guest Blogger responsibilities will include submitting one post per week to the PW&WCBA blog between now and the conference and attending specifically assigned sessions at the event and blogging live or same day.

By participating as a Guest Blogger leading up to and at the event, you’ll receive an all-access pass for the entire event, taking place September 22-24th at the W Hotel in Seattle, WA. In addition, Guest Bloggers are responsible for their own travel and lodging. Learn more about the event by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/1eqcUl3

Apply today by sending your name, title, company, short biography and links to your blog or writing samples, along with a few sentences about why we should choose you to be our 2014 Guest Blogger to Amanda Ciccatelli at aciccatelli@iirusa.com. We will review your submission and contact the chosen Guest Bloggers directly with more details.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

I was lucky enough to sit down with Lou Russell, CEO,
Learning Facilitator, Russell Martin & Associates, to talk about
leadership. Today, leadership is a hot topic among the project management
community because a project manager’s role goes far beyond task-related
deliverables. Although the project manager must be able to effectively manage
goals related to time, scope and cost, the work does not stop here since the
project manager must also be able to manage numerous issues and goals, and be
able to lead the people performing them.

Russell is speaking at the upcoming ProjectWorld & World Congress for Business Analysts
2014 conference in Seattle. He will be presenting a session entitled, “Emotional
Intelligence for Project Team Decision Making.” This year, PW&WCBA combines
professional training alongside real world practicality for richer, more
holistic leadership development. It's no wonder it's become the actionable
playbook for advancing PM and BAs for over a decade.

Check out what Russell had to say:

IIR: How do you,
as a leader, stand out in a crowd in this competitive business world?

Russell: We
challenge people to not give up on project management just because it’s
hard. And to help, we have created a lean version of PM with some radical
ideas which include building a project charter in 45 minutes or less, and
working back from the end date/budget. All of this is done with fun,
fast, flexible and measurable tools and process.

IIR: Can you name
a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe someone who
has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life?

Russell: There
are many, and Mike Donahue is my personal coach, and has been for many
years. His advice/voice is always in my head.

IIR: What are the
most important decisions you make as a leader of your organization or team?

Russell: How to
improve the performance of our customers in a measurable way, and how to help
my team grow past what they believe their limits are.

IIR: As an
organization gets larger there can be a tendency for the “institution” to dampen
the “inspiration.” How do you keep this from happening?

Russell: Lots of
laughing.

IIR: How do you
encourage creative thinking within your team or organization?

Russell: Everyone
on my team has full ownership of everything they do, and can change it in any
way to make us all better. They know that and do that. Failure is
fine – that’s how people learn. Failure twice is a blind spot and needs
mitigation, which is part of my job.

IIR: Which is
most important to your organization or team? (mission, core values or vision?)

How do you communicate the “core values” to your team?

Russell: Our
current mantra is Scalable and Sustainable. We will only exceed as ONE
with many.

IIR: How do you
help a new employee understand the culture of your organization?

Russell: We share
our Mission, Vision, Values and spend lots of time with them.

IIR: What is one
characteristic that you believe every leader should possess?

Russell: Trust in
providence with a humble heart.

IIR: What is the
biggest challenge facing leaders today?

Russell: The
perception of being busy when we could be wasting our time on the wrong things.

IIR: What is the
one behavior or trait that you have seen derail more leaders’ careers?

Russell: Avoidance
of conflict and accountability

IIR: Can you
explain the impact that social media has made on you as a leader?

Russell: It
connects us to others every minute of the day (good) and provides us with a
huge diversion to not focus (bad).

IIR: What advice
would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?

Russell: Be
brave, have a strategy, be ready to change that strategy and be open to growth
throw trips and falls.

IIR: What are you
doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a leader?

Russell: I am
part of a CEO group that meets monthly to keep each other on track.

Russell will be speaking at ProjectWorld & World Congress
for Business Analysts 2014, taking place in Seattle, Washington September 22-24th
at the W Hotel. The 2014 program is designed with courses for all training
levels, a robust agenda, and most importantly tangible lessons which you can
begin implementing the day you return to your office, making you even more
valuable to your organization. PW&WCBA offers attendees 36 PDU/CDUs -
that's more than half of the required credits necessary to maintain your
certification in just one place.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

There will be times when a project doesn’t run as smooth as
you had planned. When you put together a group of intellectuals that all have
the same goal, but have different ways to achieve that goal, is when you’ll run
into problems in project management. Team conflict is challenging for
project leaders but it is not necessarily bad. Conflict can lead to new ideas
and approaches and facilitate the surfacing of important issues between team
members if it is managed well.

In fact, according to various research studies on team
conflict, the major sources of conflict among project teams are project goals
not agreed upon, disagreement of the project's priorities and conflicting work
schedules. This is no surprise since most organizations today run multiple
projects and employees often find themselves serving on a variety of project
teams.

Here is an infographic from Visual.ly that highlights
the key causes of conflict in project management teams today:

Explore more visuals like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

In virtually every industry that exists today, leaders must set
aside more time to reflect and assess their thinking, capabilities, and
strategies. It is crucial that they evaluate how their leadership brand is
being perceived by others and whether or not it requires a tune-up.

According to Forbes,
here are leadership lessons to help you accelerate your career as a leader.

Opportunities Are
Everywhere

Leadership requires circular vision and when you begin to
grow complacent, you only see the obvious details before you. In fact,
your mindset becomes stagnate because you are not stretching your perspectives
enough to see more than you want to. When you fall into this trap, it’s time to
reshuffle the deck, and map out the factors that are influencing your thinking.
You must begin to identify areas that can be improved – such as relationships, culture,
networking, how you are investing in yourself, etc.

Without Strategy,
Change Is Substitution

Change management is the unwritten rule in every job
description and a key success factor in your workplace performance. Rather
than wait for change to come your way, be proactive and identify patterns of
change so you are prepared to manage it head-on. As a leader, you
must always have a strategy for change. A change management strategy
is the ultimate form of leadership accountability, because it forces you to
think critically about what you need to do as a leader to minimize risk and
maximize reward.

Embrace an
Entrepreneurial Attitude

An entrepreneurial attitude that is centered on continuous
renewal and reinvention of yourself as a leader and your business is what
allows you to sustain success and reach for significance. The entrepreneurial
attitude is a mindset; it must be an operating standard that is embedded in the
minds of everyone in the organization. It’s a challenge to reinvent within
industries that have been in place for decades – but you can start to employ
the entrepreneurial attitude by injecting new talent, new perspectives, and new
resources.
Refresh Your Thinking

Great leadership is about keeping refreshing the way an
organization thinks. It may be a lot of work, but the marketplace
demands it. This is why leaders must keep themselves refreshed with new
knowledge, skill-sets and aptitudes. Time is your most valuable asset and
it’s up to you to determine how to best maximize it. Be courageous, refresh
your thinking and implement what you learn.

Trust Yourself

Trusting yourself is the ability to know your strengths well
enough that they allow you to navigate your workplace successfully. It’s
the ability to trust your gut and know that when preparation meets the
opportunities that are in front of you, your natural talents, capabilities, and
skill-sets will get you through any situation. How many times does your gut tell you to take
action but you don’t? Instead, you wait for those around you to take
the calculated risks that you are hesitant to take yourself. Effective
leadership is about timing and when you don’t trust yourself, oftentimes you
miss the opportunities to create impact and influence – and disrupt momentum
along the way.

Manage Your Brand

Leadership branding is the new normal for organizations
seeking to operate at optimal efficiency and profitability. When an organization’s
leaders can’t define their leadership brand identity for their executive team,
senior leadership team, silos begin to form and the organization begins to lose
its competitive edge. When you don’t manage your leadership brand – someone
else will. When this happens, you become vulnerable to what others
expect from you because you have not set forth any precedence for those
expectations. As a result, the balance of power and influence sways away
from you; your own identity crisis makes it easy for others to question your
capabilities, and decisions.

Adversity Can Make or
Break You

Adversity management reveals you. What others might see as a
big problem – you might see as a situation that is easily manageable.
When you see adversity through a lens of opportunity, it gives you a leg-up and
a powerful competitive advantage. How
you manage adversity will shape the way others see the real leader that you
are.

A Leader’s Success Is
Never Won or Lost in an Instant

The significance of your leadership tenure is defined by
your complete body of work. It is the culmination of the work you do —
how it all ties together and how you handle the rough patches along the way —
that forms your legacy. If you cannot sustain consistency, you begin to lose
value for your brand and the platform you are trying to create to influence
outcomes.

Give to Others in
Faith, Not in Expectation

Leadership is about sharing the harvest of the momentum that
you are building with others. Leaders must recognize that it is their
responsibility to inspire and unite – and in doing so they expand their
influence through others. Amongst many things, leadership is about making those
around you better – by being a great teacher, investing in relationships, and making
sound decisions. One day they may give back to you more than you ever
expected – but don’t go into it expecting others to reciprocate.